ABSTRACT
THE study of international news coverage within the United Statesand the flow of international news worldwide has yielded a richbody of literature describing the amount of news present from various countries in various content categories, and hypotheses have been tested about various influences on international news (for example, Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Gerbner & Marvanvi, 1977; Hart, 1966; Hester, 1971; Hicks & Gordon, 1974; Lent, 1977; Ostgaard, 1965; Sande, 1971; Semmel, 1977; Smith, 1971.) A common finding has been an emphasis on bad news (for example, Bergsma, 1980; Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Kaplan, 1979; Larson, 1979; Lent, 1977) but there is little theory available to explain why this should be true.
